How Gool helps kids practice Iraqi Arabic
A parent creates the family account, adds a child, and chooses an age band. Gool then presents short activities in a format designed for that child's stage.
Setting it up
Create the parent account
An email address, a password, your first name, and a tick to confirm you are an adult. That is the whole form. The account is yours: children never create one, and everything else hangs off it.
Add a child profile
Give the profile a first name or nickname, pick an avatar, and choose an age band — 3–6, 7–12 or 12+. Add one profile per child; each keeps its own progress. If you want a child to be able to open Gool on their own, you can also set them a username and PIN.
Open the first unit
The path starts at the first unit, which is free. Each stop on it is a short lesson of a few words. No payment details are needed to get this far.
What a lesson is made of
A lesson introduces a small set of words and then practices them. There are four kinds of step, and which ones a child sees depends on their age band.
Meet the word
The word appears with its picture, its English meaning and its romanized Iraqi spelling, and it is read aloud. A parent note explains anything worth knowing — when a word is affectionate, or changes for a boy or a girl.
Listen and tap the picture
Gool plays the word; the child picks the picture that matches it out of three. This is the recognition step, and every age band gets it.
Choose the Iraqi word
An English prompt, three Iraqi words, one right answer. This is recall rather than recognition, so it starts at 7–12. At 12+ the options drop their picture hints and the word has to come from memory.
Say it out loud
Every lesson ends with the child recording themselves saying a word and playing it back. For 3–6 that is the whole step. For older children, when Gool has a reference recording for that word, it also compares the two clips on the device and gives a friendly star rating.
What you will actually hear
Some words play a recording made in Gool's own studio. Most currently play a built-in synthetic voice from the browser, which is a placeholder while the recordings are made. Speaking practice works either way, but we would rather you know that before you sign up than be surprised afterwards.
Building a steady habit
Finishing a lesson earns XP, and practicing on a day you have not practiced yet extends a day streak. Miss a day and the streak restarts. It is a small pull back to the app, which is the point — a few minutes often beats an hour once.
Behind that, Gool keeps a review schedule for each word, per child. Answer a word correctly and it comes back a day later, then three days later, then at growing intervals. Miss it and it returns within minutes and the interval resets. The Practice screen serves whatever is due, so the words closest to being forgotten are the ones that come round again.
Use Gool in a browser, or install it
Gool is a website first. It opens in any modern browser on a phone, tablet, laptop or desktop, and there is no app store download and no account needed to look around.
On a phone you can add it to the home screen from the browser's share menu — Gool will offer to show you how. Installed, it opens full screen like an app and keeps working without a connection, which is useful on a plane or in a car.
Progress is saved on the device as a child goes, and written back to the parent account in the background whenever there is a connection — so the same child picks up where they left off on another device.
Parents stay in control
The parent dashboard is where you switch between children, add a profile, and open a child's settings. For each child you can see words learned, lessons done, total XP and the current day streak — and turn the Arabic script or the sound on and off.
- No ads, no chat, no comments, and no contact between users.
- Buying Gool Plus is only possible from a signed-in parent's own settings. A child who taps a locked unit gets an "ask a parent" message and no price and no payment screen.
- Speaking clips are compared on the device and are not uploaded to Gool's servers.
- Analytics is optional, off until you accept it, and can be switched off again on the Privacy page at any time.
Questions parents ask
Do I need to speak Iraqi Arabic to help my child?
No. Every word is written in romanized spelling with its English meaning, is read aloud, and carries a short note for the grown-up reading over a shoulder — enough for a parent to follow along without knowing the dialect.
How long is a lesson?
A few minutes. A lesson covers a handful of words with a short practice step for each, and ends on the speaking step. It is built to fit before dinner, not to fill an evening.
Can I add more than one child?
Yes. A parent account can hold a profile for each child, each with its own age band and its own progress and review schedule. One Gool Plus covers all of them.
Does my child need their own login?
Only if you want one. You can pick a child's profile yourself from the parent dashboard, or give them a username and PIN so they can open Gool on their own.
Does Gool use the microphone?
Only for the speaking step, and only after the browser asks your permission. The clip is played back and, where a reference recording exists, compared on the device. It is not uploaded or stored on our servers.
Which Arabic does Gool teach?
Spoken Iraqi Arabic — the everyday register families use — rather than Modern Standard Arabic, plus the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet. The Iraqi wording and romanization are still being reviewed by native speakers.
Ready to try it?
The first unit is free and takes a couple of minutes to reach. If your family already has an account, you can sign in instead.
More about what Gool teaches: Iraqi Arabic for kids, who builds Gool, and the Gool blog.